Fire and Sand
by Ayien
Summary: 100 drabbles on the GaaraNaruto relationship, done for fanfic100.
1. Beginnings

**Fic 01. Prompt 001. "Beginnings."**

The first time Naruto sits down and really examines his own seal is in the dark of night, with clouds covering the moon and nothing but himself, it seems, alive in the world. He traces the whirling flames spiraling out from his navel, shivers, giggles uncontrollably at the way his skin twitches under his finger, as if possessed by a mind of its own.

The first time Gaara sits down and really examines his own seal is in the light of morning, with the hot sun beating down on his back and everyone but himself, it seems, alive in the world. He traces the smudged black waves spread over his arm, blinks, watches sand flow from nowhere to cover his arm, as if protecting him from himself.

They are five years old.


	2. Parents

**Fic 02. Prompt 027. "Parents."**

Some days Naruto thinks he can remember his parents, particularly in the dim half-light between waking and dreaming when all that exists is blue and warmth. He smells the light, delicate scent of lavender and feels warm hands cradle him close, a flash of dark hair falling to shield him from the world. Then the world shifts, tilts, and he is held closer in callused hands, his head full with sandalwood and smoke, a strong, steady heartbeat resounding through him.

And then he wakes, and realizes that he is alone in a dark, moldy apartment with no one.

Gaara always remembers his parents. His mother has always been with him, a solid presence born of blood and fear, a shield against a world that sees him as a child of hatred. Some days he wonders if the voice is his head is truly his mother, if all mothers demand blood and fury and screams, but the voice always tells him that mothers love their sons, will always love their sons beyond fear and doubt and death, and good sons return that love.

Gaara is determined to be a good son.

His father, he had never truly known or cared for. He was an obstacle, although to some extent he had been useful, as he gave him blood for Mother. Obstacles could be overcome, could be scaled or crushed or beaten into pieces. Gaara is determined to crush him.

One day Gaara goes to his father's office, with Yashamaru's- _the man he loved_- blood dripping from his hands and his own blood flowing from a tattoo, a sign of Mother's love, the one thing he can depend on, and he enfolds his father in sand, and with Mother singing soft songs of approval in his ear, he crushes him.

One day, long after, Gaara goes to the Chuunin Exams, and there he meets a boy like him. This boy knows what it is to be hated and feared, this boy's eyes says that he knows what it is to be good and have that thrown back in your face. This boy, Gaara sees, doesn't have a mother. This boy will be lucky as so few truly are.

Gaara will take him to meet Mother.


	3. Strangers

**Fic 03. Prompt 025. "Strangers."**

Mikoto looked up from her wash tub, twisting her father's pants in her hand to wring out the warm water filled with soap suds. The loud yells that had gotten her attention were coming from a tall, broad-shouldered man across the way, his hair, like spun gold, gleaming in the sunlight that bounced off the waterfalls that gave her Hidden Village its name. The man pouted, lean face crumpling, and loped after his companion who was walking ahead. Mikoto looked farther up the road, her eyes widening.

The man the blond was chasing was… terrifying. Hair the color of blood, skin as pale and perfect as alabaster, pupil-less eyes filled with irritation. He smelled of blood to Mikoto, who had been blessed with her family's bloodline limit. The blond caught up with him, wrapped a muscular arm around his shoulders, and jerked him to his chest. Mikoto dropped her work, flinching, for she knew that the ninja- he had to be that, no normal civilian would be so frightening- would react, as all shinobi did, with violence.

But he didn't. The blond dipped his head and buried his face in the blood-red hair, saying something softly. The redhead's hands gripped the arm around him as he tilted his head upward, and then- Mikoto would swear it until the day she died- he smiled, and it was the most heartbreaking thing she had ever seen in her life, the saddest thing she would ever see. A pale hand came up and curved against the taller man's cheek, brushed over the three whisker-like scars, and then moved to tug the blond's head down.

They kissed, and it was beautiful. Mikoto had never seen two men kiss before, hadn't even known that such relationships were possible, but they did exist and the proof was here in front of her.

They fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, and the way the tall one shifted to accommodate the redhead's gourd strapped to his back, the way the redhead's hand tangled in blond hair, green eyes drifting shut, spoke of their relationship. Their lips were sealed together as if all that was needed for life was each other.

And, Mikoto saw, as they separated and continued to walk, with the tall one's arm slung around his companion's shoulder, that it was true.


	4. Hours

**Fic 04. Prompt 006. "Hours."**

Gaara changed with each hour that passed in a day, Naruto noticed after a few weeks of living together. In the morning darkness, with them sprawled in the big bed in the small white cottage, Gaara was soft, warm, and limp, his lean body stretched over him and warm breath stirring against his neck, the scent of earth and sweat and warmth in his nose. Then Gaara would wake, bleary eyes slitting open, muscular body rocking against him as he swam into wakefulness. Naruto loved that moment, when Gaara realized that he was with Naruto, that he was loved, and offered one of his shy, heartbreaking smiles, as he did every morning, and Naruto, as he did every morning, would lean down and kiss him, slow and gentle, arms wrapping around his fragile spine.

In the light of morning, with tea kettle rattling on the stove and Naruto rejecting cereal after cereal as 'too healthy,' Gaara was slender and strong, shoulders straight and long hands stirring his cup of green tea. His face was pale and expressionless as he perused the morning newspaper, remarking ever so often on the status of the Hokage and the newest missions. Then they would separate, going to teach their teams of genin, meeting back up for lunch at Ichiraku's.

In the heat of afternoon, Gaara was alive, smirking slightly as he reached over and stole some of Naruto's noodles. His hand- always the left, since Gaara ate with his right- trailed through the air, sketching shapes as he spoke in the soft, wistful voice that Naruto loved, that was reserved for him alone, of his genin and the way they constantly argued and fought and grew stronger and threw kunai at him and sometimes even begged him to show them the sand, and Naruto would watch his eyes, watch for the faint tinge of surprise that he was here, that this was real, that he was loved by his team.

In the cool of evening, they would walk together back to the white cottage in the woods with vines trailing over the slate roof, and Gaara was a child again. Or not really again, since he had never been one, but he was a child anyway. He would peer at random flowers and make some remark- _this looks like a cow vomited on it_- that would leave Naruto gaping at him. They would enter their house, and Naruto would unbuckle the straps of Gaara's gourd and lift it off him, then press his hands against the delicate spine deformed by so many years of carrying a burden larger then itself until Gaara sighed in relief.

In the dark of night, they moved together, Naruto rolling his hips forward into Gaara's welcoming heat while Gaara made begging sounds low in his throat, his head flung back and hands clenching blindly at Naruto's shoulder as Naruto dipped his head to sink fangs into salty flesh. Gaara's eyes were wide in the darkness, and Naruto whispered words of love into his ear. Gaara responded as he always did, whimpering, hungry and needy, and Naruto gave him everything until they collapsed into a pile of shivering limbs and panting breaths.

In the light of the moon, Gaara would lie asleep, savoring what he had been denied for so long, and Naruto would hold him close, fingers fitting so perfectly into the grooves of his ribs, and count the bumps in his spine until sleep took him.


	5. Home

**Fic 05. Prompt 090. 'Home.'**

"Gaara, I found it!" Gaara lifted his head from sketching the last line of the kanji to watch Naruto bound into the apartment, blue eyes alight and face crinkled in a grin. He leaned back in the chair as Naruto plopped down on the table, making it creak and threaten to buckle under his weight. A quick brush of lips over lips- Gaara shivered at the contact, still so new, so frightening that Naruto would _want_ him- and Naruto sat back, careful not to smudge Gaara's calligraphy.

"It's this small house outside the walls in the forest that the Hokage says we can have, with a garden in the back so I can grow my plants, and there's a really big stove for ramen, and these really _nice_ wooden floors and a upstairs room with lots of windows-" he quieted as Gaara raised a hand, allowing him to speak.

"I want to see it." Naruto bounced up and took his hand, sliding a hand under his knees and lifting him in a blur of movement. Gaara blinked at the sudden shift, realized that it was Naruto acting like a gallant knight again, and craned his head back to stare at his… should he say 'boyfriend?' They were, after all, not lovers yet. Naruto smiled, one of his infamous, wide, cheesy grins, and then they were gone in a puff of smoke.

Gaara disentangled himself from Naruto's arms as soon as they arrived, glared when Naruto tried to scoop him back up, and turned to the house. It was… nice, he had to admit. The house slouched under the shade of one of Konoha's spreading oak trees. Gaara had always been intimidated by the trees, by their silent proclamation that _here_, in Konoha, there was enough water to feed them. In the desert, Gaara had never been given enough water; water was for 'normal' people, and he didn't need the precious liquid, since Shukaku would keep him alive anyway.

He walked around to the back, trailing a hand on the simple and clean whitewash, ignoring Naruto's hopeful footsteps behind him. Honestly, for a shinobi, Naruto had as much stealth as a sandstorm. Seven neat rows of dark earth trailed away from him, the smell and sight so different then the desert's harshness. Naruto was talking again, babbling about planting tomatoes and carrots for ramen and other things. Gaara tuned him out, opening the back door and entering the hallway, the butter-yellow wood floors slick and warm under his feet.

Naruto looked down and scuffed his shoes. "Go into the room at the right, okay? And close your eyes." Gaara glanced at him- why in the world was closing one's eyes necessary to see a new house?- but did what Naruto asked, as he would always do. A warm hand grasped his and led him forward. There was the sound of a rice paper door sliding open.

He opened his eyes and fell in love all over again. It was a calligraphy studio, with a large desk with brushes and inks ready for use, a clean white sheet spread over the desk. He fought the urge to smile, but turned in the circle of Naruto's arms and buried his face into Naruto's chest, feeling warm hands hold him close.

This was where he belonged.

This was home.


	6. Summer

**Fic 06. Prompt 063. 'Summer.   
**

Summer in Konoha is hot and wet, with the weeping willows by the still pond that Gaara tends with single-minded devotion stretching down, down, down to dip green fingers into the diamond-like water. Naruto is beneath the weeping willows today, in shorts with a glass of lemonade, hair sweaty and sticking to his forehead while he watches Gaara float on his back in the pond in a swarm of koi, skin as pale as marble dappled with shadows and light. He grins at the memory of suggesting a swim in the pond to Gaara for the first time.

* * *

"Yeah, see, you dive into the pond and it keeps you cool." He lets go of the rock lip of the pool, flinging wet hair back with a flick of his head, and does a somersault in the water, surfacing again to see Gaara watching him, head tilted.

"You're contaminating the water." His voice is deep and slow, still as the sluggish Nakano River. Dragonflies, bright spots of jeweled color, settle on Gaara's hair, and Naruto fights the urge to snicker. "No, Gaara," he is patient with Gaara, the only one he really _loves_, "we have enough water that you don't have to worry about that." Gaara chews on his lower lip, the layer of sand on his skin rippling with his agitation.

"It's _water_."

"Uh-huh. Come on!" He bounded up from the water and grasped Gaara's arm, leading him to the edge. Gaara flicks a _look_ at him, but steps off the ledge and into the water.

He sinks like a stone. Naruto dances around for a moment- Gaara's kidding, of course; okay, he's not- and dives in after him, grasping Gaara's chest and pulling him to the surface. Gaara opens his eyes, his hair- black with water- plastered to his forehead as he stares at Naruto with admirable calm, but for the tic above his brow.

"Okay, Gaara, you have to take the sand armor off first." He smiles sheepishly. "I should have remembered that." Gaara nods regally, but the sand whirls away, and Naruto helps him to float, koi brushing slip-sleek against their legs. He scoops up a handful of water and dribbles it on Gaara's nose. Gaara twitches, a hand coming up to pull Naruto away from him.

"Go have some lemonade, you puerile intelligence-deficient." Naruto drops a loud, wet, smacking kiss on Gaara's chest and climbs out of the pool, chirping,

"Love you too, sweetcheeks!" He can feel the green gaze boring a hole into his back, and escapes from the tornado of sand behind him into the house, laughing like a hyena all the way.


	7. Storm

**Fic 07. Prompt 070. 'Storm.'**

Thunder crackled in the air as Naruto knocked on the door to Gaara's office, Temari and Kankuro hovering nervously behind him. The doorknob turned, opening a crack. A bleary, black-ringed green eye blinked at him from the opening.

"What do you want, Naruto?" He pressed a shoulder into the door and forced it open, closing it behind him with a squeak of hinges. The office was dark and empty but for the desk that really was a lot prettier then Tsunade's. A bolt of lightning slashed across the sky, lighting Gaara's thin face and hollow eyes.

"Jeez, you trying to kill yourself?" He said, gesturing at the huge piles of paper on the desk that needed signatures. Gaara flinched, a twitch of his shoulders. Naruto lowered his voice, feeling absurdly like a horse trainer gentling a spooked horse, "Temari and your brother are really worried about you, you know." Gaara turned away, nearly flopping into his chair, his frail shoulders trembling, lidded eyes glazed, and picked up his pen before he answered,

"I know. I have a lot of work to do, so if you would?" He pointed his pen at the doorway. Naruto turned away from the window where dark clouds roiled, a herd of black horses moving across a blue pasture, and stalked across the room to slam his hands down on the desk, messing up the carefully stacked papers.

"No, Gaara! I don't care if you're fucking Kazekage- you could be Hokage for all I care- we're _worried_ about you! Why do you think your family called for me?" Gaara looked up, then waved a hand in dismissal. "I will be fine. These papers need my signature now." Naruto's hand curled into fists, and then he was over the desk with his hands clenched in Gaara's collar, dragging him up and out of the chair as he breathed,

"I care about you, you fucking idiot," before crashing his lips down on Gaara's surprised face, arms wrapping around his too-thin frame and pulling him close, a thigh insinuating itself between Gaara's and rocking upward as he kissed him hard, controlling, pouring his anger and fear into every sweep of his tongue. Gaara's hands hung limply at his sides, before coming up to wrap around his neck, whimpers and groans bubbling from his mouth. A storm of fury, of love and need and lust, roared up inside Naruto, making his arms tighten as he left Gaara's mouth, allowing him to gasp for breath, and skim his teeth over the pale neck to sink them into the tendon between shoulder and neck.

Gaara stiffened in his grip, sighing, and then fell limp in his arms, melting like glass. Naruto wrenched himself away from the taste of skin he was rapidly becoming addicted to, and glared down into blurry green eyes. "Is that enough to stop working for?" Gaara's lips flickered into a tiny smile.

"Fine. You win."


	8. Family

**Fic 08. Prompt 024. 'Family.'**

Kankuro choked and spat out his soda, scrubbing at his face for a moment before he looked up, hands smashing down onto their scarred kitchen table. Gaara turned to his older sister, whose eyes narrowed as she stared at him, the soft rasp of the nail file over her fingers loud in the air. It was comment enough, Gaara supposed.

"Okay, let me just go and get a Q-tip, 'cause I'm pretty sure you just said that you're going to live with Blondie over there."

"I did," Gaara informed them. Kankuro yowled as he stabbed himself in the eye with the Q-tip. Temari hopped off the counter, nail file in hand, and stalked over to Naruto, who was sprawled over their dying plaid couch, headband pulled down to cover his eyes as he snored obnoxiously loud.

"YEOWCH!" Naruto bounded off the couch like an electrified trout. Gaara rolled his eyes heavenward, asking for strength in dealing with the wastes of space classified as 'siblings' and pulled the nail file from Temari's hand. "I want to live with him in Konoha. He wants me to as well. Ergo, I am going to, and you will not stop me."

"But… Gaara!" Kankuro said, grabbing his hair in frustration. "You're Kazekage, you can't just leave like that!" Gaara considered that. It did present a problem.

"Fine. Temari, you are now Kazekage. Enjoy the hat." Naruto fled behind him and cowered, arms wrapped around his leg. "Gaara, Temari's being mean to me! Can't you kill her or something?" Gaara fought valiantly against the urge to throttle every single one of them.

"Shut up. Temari, you be Kazekage. Kankuro, stop sniveling or I'll remove your eye myself so you won't be in pain anymore. Naruto, we are leaving."

"But Gaara-"

"_Now._"


	9. Heart

**Fic 09. Prompt 47. 'Heart.'**

"Naruto?"

"Yeah?"

"Temari said that… that Kankuro hasn't come back from his mission. She says that the chuunin sent to find him have all been killed."

"Oh, fuck. Do you want to go see her?"

"I… I don't know."

"Come on, Gaara. If nothing else, we can ask her if she'll give us permission to search for him ourselves. What was the mission?"

"To scout the perimeter of a Sound encampment near the border of Suna. Are you… Do you think she will let us? Your Hokage thinks we are valuable tools. Would she really allow us to leave?"

"I'll make her. I love the old hag, but your brother is more important right now than whatever mission she has for us."

"Thank you."

"Anytime. I've got your pack."

"Naruto?"

"Yes?"

"Why… why does my heart hurt?"


	10. Broken

**A/N:** Thank you to all reviewers. You give me the motivation to continue.

**Fic 10. Prompt 71. 'Broken.'**

Some days, Kankuro wants to hit his brother, to rip and tear the smaller form to shreds for dragging him back from the abyss of death, for staggering back to Suna with him over his shoulders and Naruto beside them, for leaving Kankuro trapped in a body with legs that have become unresponsive stone to his every command. For leaving him broken.

And he rages at Gaara, flings paperweights and puppetry tools and kunai, and Gaara just stands there and takes it, face immobile as the hunks of wood he can no longer call legs. He calls him stinging words that he wishes he can take back the second after he says them, words like 'freak,' 'demon,' and the ever-popular 'monster.'

And Gaara just stands there and takes it. Kankuro hates him for that, for the unflinching acceptance of the words. He wants him to fight a hopeless, dying battle, to fight back for everything that Kankuro can no longer fight for, to be something, anything, other then this unmoving brother that can walk while he cannot, this boy- for that is what he still is- that doesn't appreciate the gift he has been given.

He tells him this, and more. He spits and hisses, until the door slams open and Naruto, eyes blood-red and fingers flaring chakra claws comes into the room and wraps a cold hand around his throat and he loves this, loves this pain that confirms that he is alive. Naruto ushers Gaara out of the room, the gentleness belying his fury, and tears him into tiny bleeding pieces with words alone.

He tells him of Gaara's anguish over failing him, of Gaara's pain for each death he has caused- dimly Kankuro remembers the count, four-hundred by his twelfth birthday, more now- of the fact that Gaara still, even now, wakes shaking in the night with visions of the curse his mother wanted him to be the embodiment of. He paints a vulgar picture of Yashamaru's cruel words in a gentle voice, of sorrow singing softly forever beyond the horizon.

And Kankuro, as the door shuts behind the man who has torn him down and built him back, sinks his face into his hands and weeps, for he knows that however broken he may feel, however sick and longing and bereft he may think he is, Gaara still is bearing a burden that no one, not even Naruto, who would live for him, die for him, kill for him, cannot ease.

Deliberately, he pushes himself into his wheelchair, picks up Karasu, and begins the long, painful task of relearning his chakra pathways, the task dedicated to the brother who has overcome everything.


	11. Yellow

**Fic 11. Prompt 013. 'Yellow.' **

Gaara decided, one day when he was very small, before the thing that his siblings referred to in hushed tones as 'The Incident' with the man whose name he is unable to speak, that yellow was his favorite color.

When he was older, he learned that it was the way of young children to change their favorites arbitrarily. These children were 'normal.' Gaara had never been normal, and he had always kept yellow close to his heart.

At first, he had chosen yellow for that man, yellow for his hair and the bright finger paint that the man always used when he painted pictures of a normal family with a father and a mother and a sister and two brothers, all smiling underneath a blue sky.

Then it had been yellow for the sun, the bright round ball that lit up the sky and kept the Voice- he had not known, then, what the voice was- at bay, its restless demands quiet, kept him sane. Or saner, at any rate.

After The Incident, it had been yellow for the desert, his home, his friend, father, mother, lover. The desert comforted him, gave him whatever he wished. It guided him to water, shaded him from the heat of the sun, was home to hidden life, like the fennec foxes, huge-eared and dark-eyed and also yellow, that Gaara befriended one day when he was seven. The foxes had been his only friends, had taken advantage of the shade he made for them and settled in his lap. They had been the only affection he had known.

And then, when he was older, he chose yellow again. Yellow for Naruto's hair, yellow for the salty ramen that tinged every kiss, yellow for sun and golden koi and the floorboards of their house worn with the steps of hundreds of people before them.

Yellow for love.


	12. Water

**Fic 12. Prompt 051. 'Water.'**

Gaara, surprisingly, loved water. He loved the feeling of silk trailing over his hand, the cold, clear taste, the way it fills his belly like nothing else and calms the roaring space where Shukaku once was.

Water is more precious to him then diamonds, more filling then liver. He once read in a biology textbook that water was one of the necessities for life. He then understood that water was life, and sand was death. So Naruto dug him a pond, and filled it with cold water, and gave it to Gaara to do with as he wished.

Water was life, and Gaara had never cared for life. He wanted the chance to do this, this strange thing that so many people found fulfilling, that he did not understand. Naruto got him koi, plants, and frogs to fill the pond.

Gaara took the chance and planted the ferns, tamping the soil down and feeling the crumbling earth trickle over his fingers, then watered the plants under Naruto's tutelage, his lover's warm fingers wrapped around his own on the watering can handle. He set the koi into the water and watched them slide into the pond with a flicker of golden-silver scales, alive and breathing like so few things in the shinobi world. He watched the frogs hop into the water with wet little splashes, alive and breathing.

At the end of a weekend of work, he sat on the rocky edge of 'his' pond. His. The concept was unfamiliar, but he found that he liked it, liked having something to care for.

Particularly if that something involved water.


	13. Teammates

**Fic 13. Prompt 026. 'Teammates.'**

"_Excuse me?_" Sakura blurted. Naruto looked down and shuffled his feet.

"I'm, uh, dating Gaara. We're moving in together." Sakura blinked. "I wasn't sure I heard you right. You're _dating_ him? The freaky 'crushed Lee's leg and arm arbitrarily' guy? Why!" Naruto smirked.

"He gives good head."

"Oh, that is just _disgusting!_" Sakura gagged, sticking her finger down her throat. Naruto rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay. He's a nice guy, really cute, and he needs me. That enough for you?"

Kakashi's eye lit up and glittered in a most alarming fashion. "Ooo… This reminds me. I need to get Make-Out Paradise Yaoi Edition! Did you and Gaara pose for the cover?" Naruto choked. "No!"

"Too bad. I'm sure you look very cute together." Sakura laid a hand on his shoulder. "But, you guys are happy together? He doesn't treat you bad or anything?" Naruto smiled softly. "Yeah. I'm the luckiest guy in Konoha. He doesn't know how to lie, he's surprised by every nice thing I do, he lets me babble about my garden… it's great." Sakura pursed her lips, but nodded decisively. "Okay, then. I'm happy for you." A moment of silence, which Kakashi broke in signature fashion.

"Sooo… who's on top?"

"PERVERT!"


	14. Sunrise

**Fic 14. Prompt 031. 'Sunrise.'**

Naruto had never been the type to enjoy sunrises. He was usually blissfully asleep, and he stayed that way (if he could) until 11:00, at the earliest. This all changed when Gaara moved in with him.

They slept tightly wound around each other, Naruto's face buried in the back of Gaara's neck and his arms wrapped around the thin, sharp body, so when Gaara slipped away that first morning, he knew. He frowned, flinging a hand out to crawl through the sheets in search of Gaara. His love monkey wasn't there; this irritated him mightily.

Grunting, he rolled out of the bed and stomped his feet into boots, his breath steaming in the chill air of a Konoha winter. Only Gaara would get up at seven in the fucking morning in winter! Unlocking the door to his apartment, he climbed up the rickety fire escape, poking his head over the brick lip of the roof.

Gaara sat cross-legged atop the electrical shack, the nesting pigeons that populated the roof swarming him. He almost glowed in the warm light of dawn, red hair catching the light and multiplying it into a fire. He was also shirtless, pale skin goosebumped with cold.

"Hey, Gaara!" Naruto pulled himself up and crossed the roof, leaping onto the shack and scattering pigeons. "You've gotta be crazy, coming out here this early without a shirt!" Gaara tilted his head, gazing at him in bemusement. Naruto answered the unasked question, "'cause it's fucking _cold,_ that's why!" He let his head fall into his hands. "Okay, Silency Mc-Stares-A-Lot, get over here." He wriggled out of his oversized gray T-shirt, pulled Gaara to rest between his spread legs, and slid the shirt down over both of them. "Much better."

They sat and watched the sunset, as they would do for years to come.


	15. How?

**Fic 15. Prompt 081. 'How?'**

Naruto was starting to become sick of the same question over and over.

"_How_?" The question was loaded, heavy as stone with unspoken anger. 'How could you love a murderer, how could you betray us, how can Gaara even love you at all?' The first time someone actually said the last question to his face, he… became what he hated. He remembers snarling, red-hot rage welling from somewhere inside him where he _is_ Kyuubi, is fire and rage and destruction, remembers suddenly staring up into the vendor's face with clawed hand locked around his quivering throat, so easy to rip and rend and tear into small bleeding pieces.

And then sand poured from nowhere as Gaara appeared beside him, touched his arm lightly, traced the Hunter-nin tattoo, and said in his slow, sad voice,

"He's not worth it." Naruto closed his eyes and struggled to control the fire inside him, but he finally, oh-so-slowly, managed to make his fingers uncurl from around the cold, pounding flesh. The man dropped like a stone onto the dusty road, coughing as he rubbed his throat. Naruto shook as revulsion came flooding in, shock and terror at what he had become. He wanted to puke. Distantly, he watched Gaara crouch in front of the quivering vendor, his lover's words sharp as glass and cutting as kunai, threat _dripping_ from every syllable.

The vendor pissed himself. Gaara stood, smirked, turned to him, tangled his hand in his hair, and tugged him down demandingly. Naruto obliged gladly, his arms sliding around Gaara's snake-slim hips and picking him up, rolling his hips into Gaara's as his lover devoured his mouth. The vendor sputtered, and Gaara pulled away. Naruto glanced over at the ghost-pale man and sneered,

"That's how."


	16. Star

**Fic 16. Prompt 046. 'Star.'**

The stars were bright tonight as Naruto lay sprawled on the grass, Gaara's head resting on his chest. The points of light wheeled overhead, the brightest of the stars directly above them, a red, throbbing one.

"Hey, Gaara, what's that star?" His husband craned his neck, pointing,

"That one?" Naruto nodded. He heard Gaara's smirk. "You really want to know?"

"Well come on, you've got to know! Who's the one who spent all of his nights until he was sixteen stargazing?" Gaara snorted. "Point. That's-" a muffled laugh escaped him, "the Kitsune Star. Supposedly particular stars are linked to the demons."

"Really?" Naruto drawled. "Where's Shukaku's, then?" Gaara turned his head, green eyes catching his as he muttered something. "What?" Gaara deflated, murmuring, "Both of those stars are part of a constellation called-" he winced, "the Lovers."

Naruto choked on his laughter as Gaara drove a pointy elbow into his side. "Love you too, Sandman."


	17. Smell

**Fic 17. Prompt 036. 'Smell.'**

The first time Naruto ever really noticed what Gaara smelled like was when he drew Gaara close after their first kiss and buried his nose in Gaara's hair. Gaara smelled like the heaviness of dates, the salty tang of sweat, the solidness of earth, and over it all the spicy scent of sandalwood, something that was somehow so unmistakably _Gaara_ that it made him smile. He loved that smell.

Gaara thought Naruto smelled like salt, wind, leaves, forests, and water. Salt for sweat, the mark of a shinobi; wind for changeability, a shift between loving and angry, quicksilver-fast; leaves for the solidity of trees, growing stronger from its companions; forests for strength, unceasing, as _there_ as stone and sand; water, the thing he craved most, the constant thirsting in his throat, water for life, the life that Naruto had given him now, twice over, expecting no repayment.

Gaara could pay him back now.


	18. Red

**Fic 18. Prompt 011. 'Red.'**

Naruto loves Gaara's hair, loves to watch it sift through his fingers, clean and silky like it's coated in butter, like water spun in blood-red threads. He loves the color, the deep highlights of the best red wine and fox fur and sometimes blue like the heart of a flame.

Sometimes in the winter, when Gaara comes in from training his genin team shivering and cursing the cold, he grabs him by the wrist and drags him into the shower with him, and they stand there together naked under the warm spray, smiling and talking and sometimes wrapping around each other like entwined snakes, and he washes Gaara's hair for him. And Gaara leans into his chest and lets his head rest on his shoulder and makes this _sound_ low in his throat that Naruto thinks might be the sexiest thing in the world.

Considering that it's Gaara, it's no contest.


	19. Purple

**Fic 19. Prompt 016. 'Purple.'**

Gaara sat on top of the Kazekage's palace with Naruto sprawled next to him, his eyes half-closed and drooping with tiredness. Naruto had finally – _finally_ – fallen silent, Gaara's head now filled with random anecdotes about people and missions he didn't care about, stories of someone Naruto called the 'almighty pervert' in his ears.

The sun was setting over the mesa, an eagle spiraling over the desert floor, outlined in purple light, and it was dark between him and it. Naruto's breathing slowed as Gaara moved his hand to place it carefully on his shoulder, kneading the stiff knot of scar tissue from the Uchiha's Chidori.

Wind blew through the village of the Sand, the only sound but for the far-away howling of jackals. Gaara listened to the yipping music, grinned. He could hear the high-pitched, squeaky voices of puppies mixed in with the adult's. It made him happy to realize that this year's litter had survived.

"Gaara?" Naruto's voice was slurred, drugged with sleepiness and the peacefulness of the moment.

"Yes?"

"Thank you." And that was it, a simple acknowledgement of this secret, hidden part of Gaara's life that he had shared.

There was nothing more that needed to be said, for Gaara understood.


	20. Friends

**Fic 20. Prompt 021. 'Friends.'**

Gaara wasn't really sure when Naruto's friends had become his friends.

Probably it had started when Lee had come bounding into the house, dragging a sulking Neji behind him, and invited him to go eat dinner with them while Naruto was away on his mission. Gaara had done so, bemused, and had actually- strangely- found himself having fun.

And then one day, Sakura, Hinata, and Tenten marched into the living room where he was reading a book armed with baskets of ingredients, and manhandled him into the kitchen to try and teach him how to eat 'healthily'. When he had failed miserably, Sakura snorted and said, 'Just like a man,' before punching him affectionately on the arm. It had hurt.

Very much.

But now he and Naruto often went over to the other's houses, and they came over for dinner on holidays and Gaara exchanged books with Shino.

It was strange, but very appealing, Gaara had decided, to have friends.


	21. Shapes

**Fic 21. Prompt 041. 'Shapes.'**

Naruto perched high above the forest floor on the thick branches of a tree, watching Gaara's shadowy, triangular form move softly down the branches to his side, one pale hand pressed to his eye, covering it as he scanned the surrounding area with his Sand Eye.

"They're moving around the base of the trunk," Gaara murmured, "one's got… ah, she's got tracking hounds with him. The other two have katanas, I think." Naruto nodded, hand going up to touch the cold hilt of the katana slung across his back, cylindrical, cold as ice and just as terrible to fit into his palm.

"I'll take the tracker." Gaara's hand moved away, the green eye opening. "Very well." They moved away from each other, the lean form disappearing into the darkness, before Naruto dropped down from the trees and into a welter of blood and screams and shapes sliding apart into bloody-red abstractions.


	22. Birthday

**Fic 22. Prompt 091. 'Birthday.'**

"And many moooore, on Channel Foooour!" As Naruto's warbling voice cut off, Gaara stared down at the brown-frosted confection in front of him, festooned with burning wax. There was an awkward silence. Lee's eyes, gleaming with manly tears, squinted in excitement, the Taijutsu specialist bouncing up and down in excitement like a squirrel on drugs, the rest of Naruto's friends arrayed around the table, Kiba wearing a cockeyed party hat.

"Blow it out blow it out blow it out-" Lee chanted. Gaara furrowed his brow. "Why is that necessary?" Naruto closed his eyes in what looked like exasperation. "To make a wish, dummy! Haven't you ever had a birthday party before?" Gaara glanced up at him.

"No." Naruto's voice was quiet. "Oh. Well, make a wish anyway?"

"Why would I want to make a wish? I've got everything I want. I've got you. What more do I need?" Naruto scrubbed at his eyes, lips quirking into a watery smile, before he pointed triumphantly at Sakura.

"Hah! And you said he wasn't _romantic_!"


	23. Breakfast

**Fic 23. Prompt 056. 'Breakfast.'**

Naruto was actually a good cook. Gaara found this surprising, but Naruto had an endless capacity to surprise him, whether in daily life, the bedroom, or in battle.

Naruto was especially good with pancakes, although for some reason he never let Gaara help make them. Gaara was sure that it was probably because he managed to burn ramen, which Naruto told him wasn't really even possible.

"Hey, Gaara," his lover called from where he stood in front of the stove, juggling a pan and spatula, "toss me the bag of chocolate chips!" He did so, watching as Naruto's foot snapped up into the air and caught the edge of the bag between his toes, maneuvering the bag onto the counter.

A rip, the rattle of chips being poured into batter, and a few minutes later, Naruto slid a plate heaped high with pancakes drizzled with chocolate down to him. "Dig in!" Naruto turned off the stove and plopped down beside him, chocolate smeared around his lips.

"Are you trying to make me fat?" Gaara asked.

Naruto choked.


	24. Winter

**Fic 24. Prompt 061. 'Winter.'**

"Gaara-sensei, are you okay?" Gaara heard the squeaky voices of his genin team from ouside his sand shell, and opened a rift in the sand large enough to peer outside.

"Yes. Now go away." Moriko placed her hands on her hips and thrust her little chin out.

"Not until you tell me why you're hiding in your sand, sensei! I thought we got you over that last year!"

_Splat._

Moriko fell face-down in the snow, white frost covering the back of her head. Katashi fell soon after with a shriek, dancing about and trying to push the snow out of his pants. Usagi escaped, diving into the bushes.

As Naruto leaped down from the trees, a manic grin plastered across his face and snowballs in both hand, Gaara sighed.

"That's why."


	25. Rain

**Fic 25. Prompt 066. 'Rain.'**

It rained the first day Gaara's genin killed someone, a cold, bitter rain that drenched the fire and made it cold, that plastered Moriko's dark hair to her chubby, blank face, that covered Katashi's face and mixed with the tears, that left Usagi, poor, sensitive Usagi, huddled beside him and hiding her face in his long jacket.

They were far from Konoha, caught out on the plains between Konoha and Kusa, and the bodies were just over the rise.

Katashi tried to laugh, but it only turned into hiccupping sobs. Gaara watched them, watched Moriko hold her hands out into the rain so the blood encrusted under her fingernails would wash away, and wondered what Naruto would do.

"Come here," he said, and let the sand flow out from his gourd to draw them in around the fire, so that they all sat in the warm darkness, sheltered by sand, with Katashi leaning wearily into his side, and he told them a story.


	26. Who?

**Fic 26. Prompt 076. 'Who?'**

"Who are you?"

The first time Naruto answered this question, when he was five years old, it was:

"I'm the future Hokage, and you'd better believe it!"

The first time Gaara answered this question, when he was four years old, it was:

"I'm alone."

Their answers didn't change as the years passed, for Naruto was still the future Hokage, and Gaara was still alone.

It would have always been that way, until a day full of smoke and screams, when the question was asked again, and the only answer was:

"I'm almost him."

When they were both twenty, it was:

"I'm in love."


	27. Choices

**Fic 27. Prompt 86. 'Choices.' **

The very concept of 'jinchuuriki' precluded choice. In fact, Iruka thought as he sat in his armchair and watched Naruto and Gaara play a board game on the floor of his apartment, the word 'jinchuuriki' was the antithesis of choice, this idea that one would sacrifice a newborn or unborn child without comprehension, this idea that a demon could only be contained by a baby.

He wondered, as he watched Gaara roll the dice and send Naruto's piece back to the starting line, making Naruto groan, whether they would have made the choice, if indeed they had been given a choice at all.

But then they both looked up at him, and Naruto smiled while Gaara's tired eyes seemed to brighten for a moment, and he hoped, that given the chance, they would make it again, because they were too amazing to be otherwise.


	28. Middles

**Fic 27. Prompt 002. 'Middles.'**

In the middle of battle, Naruto had found, there was always peace.

Peace came when he and Gaara, faceless in white porcelain masks of a fox and a raccoon, stood back-to-back, kunai flying from his hands and shadow clones swarming through the forest like Shino's bugs, Gaara's sand whirling in a circle around their feet, leaping up- there! A kunai stuck, quivering, falling into his hands- as blade after blade zipped through the darkness at them, Gaara's laughter rumbling through his skin and up into his own chest.

His katana whirling out, scything the air- sand parted just enough for the blade to pass through and take the head of a Sound-nin- humming with the sound of a tornado. The last shinobi fell, neck spurting blood, and he blinked the blood-red film from his eyes and stood panting at the end of the earth, sagging against Gaara.

The peace of battle was gone.


	29. Days

**Fic 28. Prompt 007. 'Days.'**

Monday was sparring day, when they went out to the training grounds and attempted, in that special shinobi way, to kill each other.

Tuesday was mission day, when they would pull on white porcelain masks and leave in the middle of the night, kunai and katana and senbon clattering in their pockets.

Wednesday was what Gaara called 'insufferable brat' day, when the two of them would go and loiter by the Academy entrance and wait for Kiba's twins to come shrieking out of the gates, chased by an irate Iruka. Naruto would laugh, pick up Shikon and Yukina, and they would walk them to Kiba and Hinata's house.

Thursday was Ichiraku-for-dinner day.

Friday was Hunter day, when Naruto would put on his mask, face pale and tight, and he would leave to kill someone unlucky.

Saturday was 'dinner with friends' day, almost always held at Chouji's house. Gaara much preferred that over the few times they had eaten at Lee's, and he had realized that Lee had five younger siblings, one of which had a terrible crush on him.

Sunday was 'alone-with-each-other' day, when they would lie out underneath the weeping willows, and Naruto, asleep, would drool on Gaara's stomach. Gaara would retaliate by clogging Naruto's ears with sand.


	30. Orange

**Fic 29. Prompt 012. 'Orange.'**

Naruto bounded in the door, jacket flapping behind him, torn and mud-spattered. He kicked off his shoes, padded across the carpet into the hallway, and flung open the door to Gaara's calligraphy studio. Gaara turned on his stool, blinking tired eyes.

"Hello, Naruto-" he stopped in mid-sentence, and rolled his eyes. "Did you fall in the Nakano River while sparring with Kakashi again?" Naruto glanced back at his jacket, winced.

"Uh- yeah. Wow. I didn't think it was that damaged." Gaara crossed to him, gave him a kiss.

"You do realize Sakura _is_ going to kill you, don't you?"


	31. Brown

**Fic 30. Prompt 017. 'Brown.'**

When blood dried, it dried brown.

It was a special color, like mud and sickness but not quite either, and for some reason it was almost impossible to get off.

Naruto and Gaara stood underneath the scalding water of the showers, heads tilted back. Naruto looked over at Gaara and watched water bead at the nape of his neck, quivering for a moment before falling free, winding a long path down the valley to one side of his crooked spine, and it picked up the color of brown as it went, leaving a long white track in its wake.

Clean, for a moment, clean, for a year, clean for one aching time that would all-too-soon be wiped away in the brown-blood-sickness of a mission.

Sometimes being a shinobi made him wonder if he was human.


	32. Enemies

**Fic 31. Prompt 022. 'Enemies.'**

Gaara had read that a shinobi and the things they did were their own worst enemy.

This seemed even truer when it came to Naruto, for Naruto had a capacity to remember every kill, every wound inflicted on another, every second of blood-red light gleaming in the eyes of a man who fought in rain for power and solitude and cowardice, who was not quite sane.

So when Naruto woke the first time howling in the night with back arched into a straining bow, he rested his hand on Naruto's scarred cheek and listened to the mumbled whispers of 'Sasuke, Sasuke, idiot, come back,' with a heavy heart, and even-

Even when Naruto's lips twitched into a faint smile and his hand came up to cover Gaara's, and he whispered 'Sasuke?'

Gaara would pretend to be Sasuke for him in the darkness.

He would pretend to be this boy who had walked a dark path, this boy that he would kill. For what he had done to Naruto, to Sakura, to all of Konoha.

For making Naruto his own worst enemy.


	33. Sunset

**Fic 33. Prompt 032. 'Sunset.'**

Kyuubi grew restless at sunset, and Gaara knew to tread carefully around Naruto on the nights it was especially bad.

Naruto lay curled on the end of the bed, stricken eyes turned toward the window, his hair gleaming copper in the red light. Gaara sat beside him, silent, allowing Naruto to push his head fretfully into his hand for petting in the remnants of fox behavior seeping through the gate.

Naruto was mumbling to himself, each ill-defined word shot through with the growling undertones of an ageless demon, confined and raging.

Gaara brushed a thumb down the whiskers, grieving.


	34. Sound

**Fic 34. Prompt 037. 'Sound.'**

In the Village of Sound, there are screams.

Gaara whips around, kunai flying into his hand, and forces himself to stand still as the ground shakes beneath him.

Lee has fallen, and lies bleeding on the ground with Tenten and Neji crouched over him, powerless to move in the approaching storm.

Naruto springs into the air, soaring as if he has wings, and golden chakra wreathes him in a swirling nimbus of fox fire, nine tails cutting the air in flaming blades, the product of pure fury and pain, the power of Kyuubi reined in and controlled by one man.

Sasuke's body stands on top of Manda with a blade in each hand and whirling red Sharingan eyes gleaming grotesquely, fanged mouth curled in a leering grin.

Gaara wonders if Kakashi has closed his eyes yet, and finally does so himself as blood burns and bubbles in the air, falling like rain. It slows, stops.

And in the Village of Sound, there is silence.


	35. Triangle

**Fic 35. Prompt 042. 'Triangle.'**

"Hey, Gaara?" Naruto leaned over the edge of the couch, dangling his upside-down face in between Gaara's body and the book he was reading, grinning as Gaara's face scrunched up.

"Naruto…" there was just the hint of a whine, because Gaara was too dignified to ever really whine, "I was _reading_ that." Naruto rolled his eyes, pulled himself up, and leaped onto the couch beside him, snatching the book away.

"The History of Red Bean Country'… Boring!" He pushed the book to the end of the couch and straddled Gaara's legs, nipping at his jaw. Gaara tilted his head back agreeably, his voice resigned.

"You obviously want something, if you're so hyper."

"Gaara! Don't you trust me?"

"Not when you're like this, no." Naruto smirked against pale flesh and licked the spot under Gaara's ear, loving the shiver that got.

"I want to adopt a kid." He backed up his proposal by running hands up Gaara's chest, playing with the buttons and doing his best to pout.

Gaara eyed him warily.

"I'll think about it."


	36. Fire

**Fic 36. Prompt 052. 'Fire.'**

Naruto and fire were the same, both flickering creatures that gave off warmth to everyone around them, that could brighten the cold night or consume everything around them in the grip of fury.

Fire had been the first invention of mankind, the great enabler that had allowed primitive man, in ignorance, to fight against the fearsome darkness. Fire was Kyuubi, terror and hate.

'_All fires must go out eventually_,' Gaara thought as he lay in the darkness and watched Naruto's chest move softly up and down in the moonlight.

He hoped he would be gone before that day ever came.


	37. Lunch

**Fic 37. Prompt 057. 'Lunch.'**

"Gaara? What do you like to eat?"

Gaara looked up from the piles of paper sprawled across his desk, waiting for the Kazekage's signature, and gave the visiting Naruto a strange look.

"Why do you ask?"

Naruto shrugged, flopping down in an old armchair reserved for visiting dignitaries. Gaara resisted the urge to sigh. Then again, this was Naruto, famed for changing rules, regulations, even people.

"Well, I just realized that I really don't know all that much about you, that's all. I don't know your favorite color, your favorite food, nothing."

Gaara looked at him, surprised.

Then he smiled.


	38. Spring

**Fic 38. Prompt 062. 'Spring.'**

Naruto lay sprawled in the grass, feeling the heat of the sun against his closed eyelids. Gaara lay with his head on his belly, probably reading another of his boring history books.

A bug landed on his nose, humming loudly. He reached a hand up to smack it, only to be stopped by Gaara, who murmured "One of Aburame's bugs. It'll leave eventually." Naruto mumbled a drowsy thank-you and laid his hand on his belly, fingers tangling in Gaara's hair as he listened to Lee's booming laughter. He was probably chasing his kids around again.

He smiled. Spring was paradise.


	39. Snow

**Fic 39. Prompt 067. 'Snow.'**

Snow was falling as Gaara opened the door, inviting his team inside and leading them to the kitchen.

Naruto was at the counter, stirring a pot of hot chocolate and singing along to music loudly and off-key. Katashi glanced at Gaara, confused. Gaara reached out and tapped Naruto's shoulder, ducking as Naruto tried to hit him with the spoon.

"Ah- damnit! Oh-" he scratched at his head. "It's you, Gaara." Gaara smirked.

"Remember, Naruto? Night before a mission? Hot chocolate for my team?" Naruto leaned over and pecked him on the cheek in apology, blushing as Moriko squealed,

"How cute!"


	40. Fixed

**Fic 40. Prompt 072. 'Fixed.' **

"Gaara!"

Gaara lifted his head, yawned, and crawled out of the bed, shambling down the stairs into the kitchen to see what Naruto was so worried about.

Splish. He blinked and lifted his foot out of the water flowing across the kitchen floor, before looking up at Naruto. Naruto was looking aggravated, a wrench in his hand and water-dark hair plastered to his forehead as he poked at the pipeline underneath the sink.

"I assume the pipeline has broken?"

"Yeah. Can you fix it?" Gaara stared at him for a moment.

"What makes you think I know anything about plumbing?"


	41. What?

**Fic 41. Prompt 077. 'What?'**

Temari wiped her fan with a cloth, watching Kankuro tinker with Karasu, his noodle-thin – _terrible, atrophied_- legs hidden underneath a cheerful kunai-patterned blanket.

"Temari?" Her brother's voice was quiet, tired, nothing like what it had been-

Before.

"What?" Kankuro set down his tools and looked at her, his green eyes- duller than their brother's- searching.

"I think…" he took a breath, "I think I might hate Gaara and Naruto for bringing me back. For-" he gestured helplessly, "-for making me live and be useless." Temari set down her fan, got up, and let him cry on her shoulder.


	42. If

**Fic 42. Prompt 082. 'If.'**

Naruto had never been one to deal in 'ifs' or 'might-have-beens.' He made a decision, dealt with the consequences, and moved on.

But now, as he stood with Shikamaru in Lee's hospital room, staring at this boy across the room who spoke of purpose, of demons, of the emptiness of life, for the first time he asked the question.

If?

For this boy who killed with impassive eyes, who toyed with his enemies and crushed them for fun, for this boy with nothing, for this boy whose purpose was to kill-

If.

For that was what he could have been.


	43. Life

**Fic 43. Prompt 087. 'Life.'**

Gaara floated on his back in the pond, feeling koi brush against his skin as he stared at the sky. Naruto lay sleeping on the rocky lip of the pool, feet dangling into the water and belly, inscribed with black seals and sacrifice, exposed to the sunlight.

Without Naruto, none of this would have happened. There would have been no apology, no family, no love, only a long bleak plain of hate and blood until he finally died. There would have been no rambunctious genin team, no birthday dinners, no snowball fights in winter.

There would have been no life.


	44. Christmas

**Fic 44. Prompt 092. 'Christmas.'**

"Here."

Gaara peered down at the festively wrapped gift, jerking as the box shook in his lap. Naruto squawked, snatching the box back as sand crashed in where it had been.

"It's okay, Gaara! There's nothing bad in there!" Gaara glared.

"No bombs?"

"No." He frowned, but stretched his arms out to take the box back, settling it on his lap and using a kunai to slit the wrapping. Naruto grinned nervously, bouncing on his toes as Gaara pulled the flaps of the box open.

His voice was flat as he stared inside at the gift.

"A puppy."

"Yeah."

"You're insane."

"But she's cute, isn't she?" He shook his head slowly, marveling.

"Yeah."


	45. Ends

**Fic 45. Prompt 003. 'Ends.' **

Naruto watched Gaara sprawled on the couch with his genin in sleeping bags on the floor, their last time together as a true team before the start of the Chuunin exams. Moriko passed the bowl of popcorn to Katashi, blushing.

'_Aw,_ _young love!_' He ignored the fact that all three of them were sixteen now.

Gaara glanced up from watching the three of them play with the new puppy and met Naruto's gaze, lips lifting in a tiny smile.

Here, on the edge of an ending, the first people besides Gaara's siblings and lover to love him were getting ready to leave him.


	46. Weeks

**Fic 46. Prompt 008. 'Weeks.'**

In the span of a week, Gaara and Naruto, working together and sleeping the minimum required hours, could kill over a thousand people.

In the span of a week, Gaara and Naruto, working together and sleeping normal hours, could consume two hundred and twenty-three bowls of ramen. Two hundred and twenty-two of those bowls were eaten by Naruto.

In the span of a week, Gaara and Naruto, working together and waking out of sleep at five in the morning, could walk Yuki, Gaara's dog, in the snow to 'go potty,' as Naruto called it, fifteen times.

In the span of a week, Gaara and Naruto, working together and sleeping together, lived a life that most married couples could only dream of.


	47. Black

**Fic 47. Prompt 018. 'Black.'**

Naruto leaned into Gaara's steadying shoulder, fingers entangled like seaweed in the tide, and watched as the ropes quietly began to click out of their winches, lowering the cedar box into the carefully dug hole in the ground.

Lowering the man that everyone had only known as Jiraiya.

The sun was shining, and the people standing in a cloud of black around the grave shone with it, each clutching a copy of the last book of Icha Icha Paradise in sweaty hands.

Naruto tried to look stone-faced, but choked on a giggle of hysteria, because it was just like the old pervert to die in the middle of summer so he could inconvenience everyone! He turned to Gaara, who studied him with a tiny smile.

"He would have wanted it this way, you know," he said randomly over the thumping of earth being shoveled. Gaara's fingers tightened, anchoring him to earth.

"I know."


	48. Lovers

**Fic 48. Prompt 023. 'Lovers.'**

Gaara leaned against the stylized jackal on the edge of the house's roof, watching rainwater collect on the stone and run down to the collection tank.

Stars shone out across the desert, pale and deathly in their radiance, and the moon ran its slow course overhead. Shukaku was whispering, but he blocked it out with an effort.

Just like he had blocked out the looks Nara gave his sister, or the kisses they exchanged in corners when they thought no one was looking.

Just like he had blocked out the sight of Kankuro and some random chuunin walking to the old theatre, arm-in-arm.

His siblings had found lovers, and he had not. He would have said this irritated him, except that it was inevitable.

He was short, skinny, and the palest person in the village. He didn't sleep, spoke in monosyllables, and was liable to amputate someone's limb for touching him unexpectedly.

For a long moment, he wondered if Naruto had found a lover.


	49. Children

**Fic 49. Prompt 028. 'Children.'**

Gaara wasn't particularly fond of children.

He was even less fond of them when they were running and shrieking, like every child in the Konoha Orphan's Home seemed to do. Naruto stood beside him, trying his hardest to keep from bouncing on his toes as a bored attendant led them through the yard and into the main building, where they were ushered to a desk and told to wait.

A thin man with dishwater-brown hair came to them, swallowing- audibly- as he caught sight of the thick rings around Gaara's eyes and the whiskers on Naruto's cheeks. Gaara kept himself from tensing, feeling the earth beneath the building strain to respond to his emotions.

"H-hello," the man said, smiling ingratiatingly. "I'm Honda, the adoption counselor, so I'll be interviewing you about your preferences."

Naruto's leg vibrated against Gaara's.

"Would you like a boy or a girl?"

"Girl-" Gaara said, just as Naruto said "Boy!" They shot each other matching stares. Honda cleared his throat.

"Baby, toddler, or child?"

"One of the older ones."

"Do you mind a child with physical or emotional problems?" Gaara turned to Naruto, who met his gaze, and understood.

"Give us the child you have that no one is interested in."

And that was how Gaara found himself sitting, disgruntled, in the living room of their cottage watching Naruto and their new- daughter, Naruto insisted on calling her, even through they were still in a probationary period- trial daughter 'get to know each other.'

'Getting to know one another' apparently involved squealing at incredible decibel levels, coloring, and torturing poor Yuki with over-petting.

Midori looked up, brown eyes wide, and allowed Naruto to help her to her feet, her deformed leg- a leg that would never allow her to be a shinobi, that would have left her always struggling to catch up- quivering as she reached for her cane.

Slowly, she made her way to him, got up on the couch as he sat very still, unsure of what was happening, sat down on his lap, and asked him in her high-pitched child-voice,

"Are you okay?" She tilted her head, and then said softly,

"Da?"

And that was when Gaara knew that he was truly luckier than any one person had the right to be.


	50. Too Much

**Fic 50. Prompt 033. 'Too Much.'**

"No, Midori," Gaara tried his best to be patient, "That's too much." His daughter pouted, chubby cheeks pushing out.

"But, Da, I want to! Dad lets me." Gaara rolled his eyes skyward and cursed his blond husband for his aggravating lack of common sense.

"Midori, Dad may be Hokage, but even that won't save you if you put a pound of gunpowder in a bomb. That bomb would blow up the entire training ground." He blinked, brow drawing together as a thought came to him.

"Why are you making bombs, anyway?"

Midori leaned into his side and whispered,

"Dad wants to make Sakura-sensei's desk go 'splode!"


	51. Dinner

**Fic 51. Prompt 058. 'Dinner.'**

"And then Yukina tried to throw a kunai, but it almost hit Shikamaru-sensei in the arm, and he said…" Midori dropped her voice conspiratorally. Gaara looked up from where he was chopping carrots for the stew Naruto was occupied in making.

"What'd he say, Midori-chan?" He smiled internally at that, at this knowledge that he had a daughter, that he was a father. Midori squinted her eyes in glee, smiling toothily.

"He said fu-"

"Okay!" Naruto interrupted hastily, blue eyes huge and round in his head. Gaara turned to look at Naruto, sharing the same dismay. He jerked his head at the doorway and turned from the carrots, waiting for Naruto to follow him.

* * *

Midori sat serenely, listening to her parents argue in the hallway with a smile.

"No, Gaara, you can't kill Shikamaru-"

"But he said that in front of our _daughter_! He's harmed her mental health!"

"Gaara, she makes bombs for fun. I highly doubt she's got much mental health left."

An exasperated sigh.

"Can I terrify him, at least?" Midori leaned back in her chair, arms windmilling as she tipped too far. Sand flowed from the floor to cushion the chair and push it back into position, but she simply climbed over the edge of the chair and watched Dad smile, sliding an arm around Da's shoulder and dropping a loud smacking kiss on his hair. Da rolled his eyes and elbowed Dad in the gut.

"I'm going to terrify him, and you'd better _talk_ to him, or I'll do it."

Midori snickered.


	52. Touch

**Fic 52. Prompt 038. 'Touch.'**

Naruto can't breathe.

He is choking and trying not to cry, and his hands are shaking and every part of his body is numb and empty, and Sakura bends over Gaara- he's always been so still, but this stillness is _wrong wrong wrong_- and cries and dips her pale, beautiful fingers in Gaara's blood.

Medics are everywhere, feet sloshing through the sand on the floor, and Gaara is staring blindly at the ceiling with eyes of shattered jade, his body clogged with poison and fear and fire.

Kyuubi is screaming, a long, rippling howl that could shake the world to bits if Naruto could only give voice to it, but instead he forces himself to move and stands by Gaara's bedside, holding the cold hand in his own, touching it and feeling the skin peel away from muscle.

And this would never have happened, he knows, if only they were young again, but they aren't; they are forty and Midori is living on her own, learning to make the best bombs in the village, and once not too long ago he found a gray hair in Gaara's mop of red. This never would have happened before.

But they are old and they are slowing and it is becoming harder to heal with every injury, with every mission, but Naruto knows that to ask Gaara to stop taking dangerous missions for the sake of the village that has given him a home would be the worst thing he could do.

So he watches, and brushes fingers wet with tears over Gaara's dusty, dry lips, soothing cracks and sunburns, and whispers in ears that can't hear him:

"Please, please, please- Gaara-" he chokes on a sob, hiccups, "-don't go where I can't follow."


	53. Diamond

**Fic 53. Prompt 048. 'Diamond.'**

Gaara sprawled out against the grass, feeling it tickle his cheek as his fingers absently stroked the earth, the last residual powers of Shukaku thrumming through him as he searched.

Searched for a bright spot in his mental vision of the ground below him, a gleaming sphere. Breath sighed in and out of tired lungs, sweat beading on his forehead, lips bitten bloody with stress. Fingers clenched into a fist. Earth shuddered under him, pulled aside with a groan of thousand of pounds of weight being pushed out of the way.

Something hard and smooth smacked into his palm as he relaxed and brought his hand close, inspecting the brilliant, perfectly formed yellow diamond. It caught the light and sparked like chakra, like the heart of a flame.

With the last of his strength, he rolled himself face-up and stared up at the wide blue sky, diamond resting on his chest.

It would make a perfect thirtieth anniversary gift.


	54. Earth

**Fic 54. Prompt 053. 'Earth.'**

Naruto dug sweaty fingers into the neat rows of his garden, feeling cool earth trickle through his fingers, beautiful in the midst of a scorching hot Konoha summer.

Being Hokage took up much of his time, but this- gardening- was something he would always do. He looked up and grinned at Gaara, who was trying vainly to teach Midori a simple defense jutsu.

Midori wasn't interested. After all, as she pointed out, bombs could smash through any jutsu if they had enough power.

He repotted a rosemary plant, wiped his forehead with the back of his arm, and smiled at Gaara, who- calmly, peacefully- smiled back.


	55. Square

**Fic 55. Prompt 043. 'Square.'**

Tsunade stared down at the mission report in her hands, eyes scanning the text but not really seeing, because what was written was too terrible to comprehend.

The Akatsuki were on the move, charring a wide swath of destruction and black fire across the land, and she knew, with the cold, crystalline understanding of a leader in the midst of war, that only Gaara and Naruto could hope to stand up to them.

Because they were the same, one being multiplied by itself, power beyond power.

Because others were going to die, and she knew that she would have to wake up every morning for the rest of her life with the blood of shinobi on her hands.


	56. Lightening

**Fic 56. Prompt 068. 'Lightening.'**

The sky was lightening in the east, a purple band trailing across the rim of the sky.

Naruto would have called it beautiful, but there wasn't time, because there was a slow thudding behind him as the war drums pounded out a warning, the pounding of the heart of Konoha in preparation for battle.

'_If there is one sound that has come down through the centuries,_' he thought, ANBU still and watchful, silent as every eye scanned the view in front of them, searching for red clouds on a background of black cloth,

'_It is the beating of the war drums._'


	57. Light

**Fic 57. Prompt 073. 'Light.'**

Gaara stood beside Naruto and watched Akatsuki move into view, and he closed his eyes and breathed out in a soft sigh of remembrance. Naruto, beside him, tangled fingers with his own.

It was time, now, for Gaara, the man who loved Naruto and taught Midori the best ways to terrify an enemy, to recede like waters lapping at shores, and for Gaara the beast, not quite man, not quite animal, but some tortured, half-mad thing in between, to come to the fore.

He opened his eyes and watched the light of the sunrise color the world in golden sorrow.


	58. Where?

**Fic 58. Prompt 078. 'Where?'**

Naruto is in the heat of battle, and he is snarling and- he slips razor-black claws into Kazuku's chest and rips both hands outward, watching gore splatter the ground, smelling meat- clones swarm the battlefield, most detailed to protect the other Rookies, because he knows- oh god, he knows and has felt the pain of sand- that Gaara can take care of himself.

There is the taste of blood from a corpse and the ashes of sanity in his mouth.

He no longer knows where he is.

The beast inside is roaring, and it's too late to find himself again.


	59. And

**Fic 59. Prompt 083. 'And.'**

Gaara stands in the middle of chaos, with sand slashing the air in blades that hiss, and he helps Hatake in the battle against an Akatsuki member in a mask.

Hatake blurs, disappears, light cutting the air with the sound of a thousand birds, but-

The sand stumbles, knocks the man in the back of the head. The wooden mask comes undone and drops to the ground.

A ruined face stares back at them, a whirling red Sharingan eye gazing at them both, the left eye socket crushed into oblivion.

Hatake stops suddenly.

He whispers in a breaking voice,

"Obito?"


	60. School

**Fic 60. Prompt 088. 'School.'**

Midori went to several different kinds of school.

There was 'scary school,' where Da would sit and tell her in his deep, slow voice the best ways to terrify her friends into doing what she wanted.

There was 'girl school,' with Sakura-sensei, who taught her how to do nails and braid hair, because Sakura-sensei said that these things were very important to social success.

There was 'prank school,' where Dad- even though he was Hokage- would drag her to the Hokage Mountain and teach her the best way to mess up the rock without causing lasting damage.

Midori loved school.


	61. Thanksgiving

**Fic 61. Prompt 093. 'Thanksgiving.'**

Naruto sprawled out on the couch, belly bulging with the traditional sushi and dango, and dreamed half-awake with closed eyes, fingers moving in a long rhythm through Gaara's hair, spread out across his chest.

It was so wonderful, to lie on their old battered couch together with a crackling fire in the fireplace and Yuki dozing by their feet, huge tail thumping slowly.

It was the holiday of giving thanks in Konoha, to the dead and to the living and to the unborn, but Naruto had given his thanks, and didn't need anything more.

Because everything he needed was here.


	62. Insides

**Fic 62. Prompt 004. 'Insides.'**

On the inside, Gaara burns hot as the desert, mouth tasting of the bitter tea he drinks and teeth sharp as daggers scraping across his skin.

And at night, when snow is falling on cedars outside their window, and lightning forks and crashes through the sky, Naruto plunges into the burning and chars himself to ashes with the pleasure that only Gaara can give him, the pleasure that dances on the knife-edge of pain and fear.

Because on the inside, Gaara is all his, and he is Gaara's, and nothing and no one will ever separate them, not even death.


	63. Months

**Fic 63. Prompt 009. 'Months.'**

As the months pass, Naruto and Gaara watch Midori grow.

At first it is slow and strange, to see their daughter who came into their lives with just a hint of chubbiness and clumsy hands shoot up into a tall, rail-thin teenager with hands callused from climbing trees and her skin golden with a tan, withered leg hidden in ripped jeans that Sakura repairs with a sigh.

When she hunts through the woods around their home with Kiba's twins, laughing and grinning, she resembles an ancient spirit of the forest, and it is all they can do not to cry.


	64. Green

**Fic 64. Prompt 014. 'Green.'**

Gaara sat in the middle of Naruto's vegetable garden, watching the leaves struggle to push up through the dark forest loam.

They were green with life, and it was so strange to see them. There had been no green in Suna, but for scattered cacti and the green of his sibling's eyes.

After the… incident with Yashamaru, had never looked in a mirror.

Because if his eyes were green, then he was alive, and he didn't want to be.

He had been the antithesis of life, something that swallowed it up.

Naruto's hand landed on his shoulders, and he smiled.


	65. White

**Fic 65. Prompt 019. 'White.'**

Gaara wasn't surprised the first time he found a white hair in Naruto's hair.

"Naruto, you have a gray hair." He immediately realized the insanity of telling Naruto that, as his husband shrieked ear-splittingly loud and leaped to his feet, startling Yuki, who began to howl, before rushing to the mirror and hunting for it.

"I can't be going gray, Gaara, 'cause that means I'm getting _old_!"

"Naruto, you're Hokage, and thirty-five. I'd think you have license to get gray hairs."

"No, Gaara-" Naruto threw his hands in the air dramatically, "it means I'm not handsome anymore!"

Gaara sighed.

Idiot.


	66. Birth

**Fic 66. Prompt 029. 'Birth.'**

"Be careful with him," Temari ordered from her reclining position on the bed. Gaara glanced up at her and Nara, hovering protectively like the proud father he was, and back down at the baby in his arms.

Honda slept the sleep of the just-born, vibrant green eyes scrunched up in folds of baby fat, wiry dark hair plastered to his head. He had never held a baby before, but he would be lying if he said he wasn't honored by the trust Temari had in him, to allow him to hold her child.

Nara and Temari glanced at each other, seemed to come to a decision, and then his sister said, more subdued,

"We were hoping Naruto might consent to being his godfather." Gaara's lips quirked upward in a small smile.

"If I know anything about him, Naruto will be spoiling Honda rotten within the hour."


	67. Not Enough

**Fic 67. Prompt 034. 'Not Enough.'**

The pale stars illuminated the desert with a ghostly light, the sands white as porcelain and just as featureless.

Gaara sat on the edge of the mesa, eyes closed as he let himself sink into the half-sleeping state that kept him alive, dreams frailer than the heart of a hummingbird chasing across his closed eyelids.

Shukaku loomed above him in the blasted landscape of his mind, a plain of brown sand, yellow eyes poisonous.

Gaara steeled himself, remembered a boy who had saved him, and threw himself into battle against the demon, for the half-sleep that was not enough.


	68. Taste

**Fic 68. Prompt 039. 'Taste.'**

Naruto tastes of ramen in the day, of minty toothpaste in the dim half-light before dawn, of sweet dango and the sodas he pounds down late into the night on all-nighters.

On the shoulder marked with silver, puckered skin, deadened to feeling and nerves hewn from each other by hatred and a thousand birds, he tastes of crackling, blue-white lightning arcing over Gaara's tongue.

Over the seal, black and spiraling, his skin tastes of fire and pain and untamed wildness, the last vestiges of an alien world and mind and mythos.

Gaara has found that he likes that taste best.


	69. Circle

**Fic 69. Prompt 044. 'Circle.'**

The circle has been broken, Naruto finds himself thinking as he kneels in the sand and hold Gaara's body in his arms, a body finally free of a tormenting demon at the cost of death.

A circle that has spun its spiral song of pain and death for thousands of years, with Shukaku as the one playing the graveyard symphony for the sanity and life of his hundred jinchuuriki.

A circle that has come to a jagged halt, like Gaara's sharp-edged, frail bones pressing into his skin and his slow heart now stopped.

He takes a breath.

Shoves life inside.


	70. Club

**Fic 70. Prompt 049. 'Club.'**

"Gaara, shove over!" He moves reluctantly, one hand clamped over his eye as he manipulates the Sand Eye down the staircase to stare at the dark table in the corner of the club where Midori is sitting with Shino's son.

"What are they doing? Is he _touching_ her?" Naruto is practically vibrating with fatherly protectiveness, itching to leap from the shadows- he wonders, idly, how the club goers would react to having the Rokudaime fly down from the ceiling grandly- and snatch Midori back from the jaws of 'pervertedness.'

After all, Naruto points out, he's a guy, and he's perverted, so this guy should be, too.

And Midori can't be corrupted.


	71. Air

**Fic 71. Prompt 054. 'Air.'**

Kakashi hadn't meant to see. He may have been a pervert, but he knew that Gaara and Naruto's love for each other was an intensely private affair, something shown in furtive glances and the brush of skin against skin.

His mission report hung, forgotten, in his hand as he stared inside the Hokage's office. Naruto was leaning over Gaara, pinning him down on the desk, mouths sealed together, red hair mingling with blond like fire in the sun.

Their chests moved out-of-sync, breath passing from one to the other.

An exchange of air and life from one to another.


	72. Food

**Fic 72. Prompt 059. 'Food.'**

Gaara stared down at the charred eggs stuck to the bottom of the pan, then at the over-crispy bacon and the morose cereal. Yuki sat at his feet, brown eyes intent and tongue lolling.

"Here." He scraped the eggs into her mouth, watching her slobber all over the floor as she ate. _'At least someone likes them_.' There was the sound of feet shuffling down the stairs, a loud yawn reverberating through the air.

Naruto paused in the doorframe and rubbed at his eyes, then gaped at the smoky kitchen.

"What _happened?_" His voice squeaked. Gaara shrugged sheepishly.

"Happy anniversary."


	73. Fall

**Fic 73. Prompt 064. 'Fall.'**

Chouji has fallen and lies as if sleeping in a wooden box. Naruto stands in the crowd, next to Shikamaru and Ino, whose hands are tangled together so tight that it is painful to see.

He realizes that Chouji will never be famous, never have songs written for him, never be anything more than another name on the memorial stone, not like him and Gaara.

Because they are, however, reluctantly, special.

But Chouji was special too, had always been special, with his loyalty, his love and his courage.

He touches his eyes and can't remember when he started to cry.


	74. Thunder

**Fic 74. Prompt 069. 'Thunder.'**

Gaara stirred, cracking an eye open and turning his head. Two brown eyes stared at him from the edge of the bed.

"Midori?" He kept his voice low, so as not to wake Naruto. "Is something wrong?" His daughter- she had lived for them with a month- nodded, hair flopping in her face.

"There's thunder, and I'm scared!" Tear tracks shone on her cheeks. Gaara blinked, tired, and shoved Naruto's sprawled form over, lifting the cover. Midori grinned a gap-toothed smile and climbed in between them, grabbing Gaara's pajamas and tugging him closer, to kiss the 'ai' tattoo.

"Thanks, da!"


	75. Dark

**Fic 75. Prompt 074. 'Dark.'**

Gaara's eyelids flicker against the inside of the blindfold, wrists straining against the soft black rope binding them together. Oh, it would be easy to break the rope, ridiculously so, but Naruto thought that this- the loss of control- would somehow be beneficial, would allow Gaara to trust him.

In the darkness, he feels air brush over his skin, touch heightened to hypersensitivity by the loss of sight. He is vulnerable, exposed, without even his sand armor to protect him, and he shudders at the first touch of Naruto's hand, callused fingers tracing the curve of his spine.

A mouth touches his, and he strains for it, for the confirmation that he isn't alone, for the chance to retake some small semblance of control. Naruto draws away, leaving him seeking. There is the sound of a jar being uncorked.

Gaara whines, low in his throat, restless, wanting touch and affection. A chuckle rumbles through the air, and a larger form blankets his back, and he throws his head back onto a broad shoulder at the first, teasing finger.

A breath hisses out into the air.


	76. When?

**Fic 76. Prompt 079. 'When?'**

"I want to have a birthday party for Midori."

"No."

"But… Gaara! She's turning eighteen!"

"I am not going to deal with hormonal teenagers trying to have an orgy in my house."

A choked splutter.

"G-Gaara! There will be no orgies or making out, I promise you that!"

"They're teenage boys. I never had problems with it, but from what you've told me, teenage boys are only interested in sex."

"She's going to have it eventually."

"Not until I've been dead for twenty years."

"Gaara, come on. It's her last birthday at home, with us."

A long sigh.

"Fine. When?"


	77. He

**Fic 77. Prompt 084. 'He.'**

Naruto is getting older, Gaara thinks, as he watches his husband, face shadowed by the headdress of the Hokage, kneel before an unmarked grave deep in the Forest of Death.

There are a few flowers on the grave, and Naruto touches them with a scarred finger, fine wrinkles surrounding his eyes like a spider's web.

"Gaara?"

He looks down, eyes skating over the name- Sasuke Uchiha- as he says, voice swallowed up and lost in the dimness,

"Yes?"

"Do- do you think he-"

A prolonged, painful shudder.

"-he ever loved me?"

Gaara's chest seizes, but he must answer.

"Yes."


	78. Work

**Fic 78. Prompt 089. 'Work.'**

Naruto leaned his elbows on the desk and glared at the papers spread over the surface, all requiring his signature and his review.

"Remind me why I wanted to be Hokage, again?"

Gaara looked up from where he was leaning against the windowsill, lips twitching upward.

"Because you thought you'd be the first Hokage who didn't have to do paperwork?"

"Oh, yeah." Gaara pushed away from his perch and crossed to the desk, pushing a few sheets at him.

"These are the most urgent."

Naruto grinned, grabbing his hand and kissing it with an air of chivalry.

"You're the best."


	79. Independence

**Fic 79. Prompt 094. 'Independence.'**

Gaara is sitting underneath the willow tree outside, and he is holding Midori's teddy bear (the one that she hasn't carried with her in ten years) in pale hands. Naruto pauses, shakes dirt off his trowel- he always weeds when he gets nervous- and stands up, wiping his hands off on his pants.

He sits beside Gaara and leans against him.

"How long has it been?"

_-since Midori left, since they couldn't protect their daughter anymore-_

"Three months, two weeks, six days, eleven hours, and twenty-five minutes," Gaara answers without missing a beat.

"She has to become independent."

"I know."


	80. Outsides

**Fic 80. Prompt 005. 'Outsides.'**

On the outside, Gaara is a normal man, if a bit thin, with dark shadows around his eyes and a gourd slung across his back.

And Naruto knows that this is deceiving, that the last thing Gaara is normal or anywhere near it, sane or within spitting distance of it, human or anything like it.

Because he knows what Gaara is, has seen the half-mad beast he is in the darkness, the alien mind that has never been accepted as human, the father who never had a father.

He knows that the outside is deceiving, but he loves him anyway.


	81. Years

**Fic 81. Prompt 010. 'Years.'**

Years had passed before Midori married. Gaara slumped in the shadow of the doorway, watching Naruto pound down cup after cup of sake with their new son-in-law, Kensuke Inuzuka.

Midori was glowing in her kimono, her hands- for once- clean and white, free of gunpowder stains and the stench of explosives, flying through the air as she chattered animatedly to her friends.

"Ey, Gaara!" Naruto slurred, tilting to the left dangerously. Gaara rolled his eyes and turned his back, trying to escape to the outdoors. He hated parties.

Naruto stumbled after him, grabbed his shoulder, and threw up.


	82. Blue

**Fic 82. Prompt 015. 'Blue.'**

The ocean lapped at the long curve of sand, while mute constellations whirled slowly overhead in a waltz older and more tired than time.

Gaara lay beside Naruto, their hands tangled together, sticky with blood and salt, and feet in the surf. The other members of the Konoha Twelve were higher on the beach, laughing and grilling fish over the fire.

"I love you," Naruto said, rolling onto his side and propping himself on his elbow. Gaara stared silently back, and in Naruto's eyes he saw a gleam of blue like the ocean, a fire like candlelight under the waters.


	83. Colorless

**Fic 83. Prompt 020. 'Colorless.'**

Hinata stares with colorless eyes and grasps Naruto's jacket with colorless hands, but the blood that she bleeds from gaping wounds under a jacket no longer pale isn't colorless, as much as he thinks- he thinks he should be hysterical, for this is Hinata-chan dying in his arms, but he is Hokage and Hokages don't cry- it should be.

Gaara is far, far away, in this moment, despite his hand on Naruto's shoulder, and all Naruto can do is watch blood spill from Hinata's lips and wonder dumbly who will take care of her children when Kiba is gone.


	84. Sixth Sense

**Fic 84. Prompt 035. 'Sixth Sense.'**

Jinchuuriki had a sixth sense, Sakura thought as she sat behind Naruto and stitched up a gaping wound in his shoulder, for Naruto always knew where the people he loved were.

It was from Kyuubi, she knew.

"I wish Midori would stop dating," he grumbled, "I sent Gaara to follow her and Honda, but he's gotten lost in the marketplace while Midori's in the club!"

"You used to like clubbing, too," she said, biting off a length of thread.

"Yeah, but why couldn't she have been introverted like Gaara?"

"Because then you wouldn't have half as much reason to mutter."


	85. Sight

**Fic 85. Prompt 040. 'Sight.'**

It is dark in the shadow of the Hokage Mountain, and Naruto can't see his hand in front of his face.

He doesn't need to, because Gaara is at his back and their spines bend and twist with each other like reeds on the shores of a river, as kunai fly around them and a blue ball of lightning slashes the darkness for a heart-stopping moment, passes over his head and takes Kabuto in the heart so Kakashi is left standing with his arm through his chest.

Gaara slides around him and kills another.

But the night grows darker yet.


	86. Moon

**Fic 86. Prompt 045. 'Moon.'**

Gaara hated the moon, and yet craved its pale, solemn light like an addict desperate for a fix.

The moon strengthened Shukaku, made the tanuki's rambling of 'killkilldeath' louder and longer, the urge to simply give up and sink into the welcoming silence of sleep stronger.

But with every minute he stood, unbent and unbroken, beneath the moon's agonized face was another confirmation that his existence was stronger, that he would be acknowledged in the morning as alive, that he existed at all, even when everyone wished for him to die.

Naruto's hand landed on his shoulder, and he smiled.


	87. Spade

**Fic 87. Prompt 050. 'Spade.'**

The spade sunk into the wet earth with a sucking sound, uprooted a clod of dirt and turned it over. Gaara watched Naruto dig at the loam for a long moment.

"You could just use an earth jutsu to move it out of the way."

"Yeah, but this is more fun!" Naruto wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist, tall and smiling and without a shirt, scarred skin exposed to the heat of summer.

Gaara thought that if there was anything in the world that could be called 'beautiful', that Naruto was it.

He moved over, picked up a shovel, and began to dig.


	88. Spirit

**Fic 88. Prompt 055. 'Spirit.'**

Midori was holding her new child, dark hair stuck to her forehead with sweat and skin flushed, tired and happy, with Kensuke in the chair by her side. Gaara loomed in the corner, fighting to keep his lips from twitching into an uncharacteristic smile.

Naruto skidded to a stop in the doorway, tired and out-of-breath from his wild dash through the hallways, pulled off his Hokage headdress, and raked a hand through his hair. He could feel his face split into a huge grin.

The baby kicked its legs and bawled, an ear-rending shriek.

"He has a strong spirit," Gaara said softly.

Naruto could feel tears welling in his eyes as he crossed the room and took this, his first grandchild, in his arms.

He was truly a lucky man.


	89. Drink

**Fic 89. Prompt 060. 'Drink.'**

Naruto's head lolls off the side of the couch, graying hair spread across the arm, a bottle of sake clutched in one hand.

Gaara pauses in the doorway, back from visiting Usagi in the hospital, and closes his eyes, sighing. He sits beside his husband of forty years and pries the bitter drink out of his hand, pulling Naruto's head into his lap and combing thinning hair with his fingers.

It has been two months since Hatake Kakashi died, felled by old age, and Naruto has done what he always does when a loved one dies:

Taken solace in drink.


	90. Passing

**Fic 90. Prompt 065. 'Passing.'**

Yuki lies beneath the willow tree in the backyard, tired eyes milky-white and blind with cataracts.

She is warm, fed, and happy: has been so, these all-too-short twelve years, the great, slow heart thumping softly to a close.

For she has slept on the floor beside Sand-smell's bed, and loped through the forest with the child by her side, and howled praise to the moon above with Sand-smell's hand heavy on her back.

She has run and played with Sun-hair.

And Yuki's heart thuds once, and then no more, her old spirit passing back to the land of her ancestors.


	91. She

**Fic 91. Prompt 085. 'She.'**

Anybody who looked twice at Gaara and Midori could see that he adored her.

When she fell, the sand broke her fall. When she cried, he would appear in a swirl of dust and comfort her. When she complained, hell itself could not bar him from removing the source of the problem.

Anybody who looked twice at Naruto and Midori could see that he adored her.

When she laughed, Naruto would smile for the rest of the day. When she played a particularly good prank, he would brag to everyone in earshot. When she got a good grade, he would take her with him to the office.

Anybody who looked once at the three of them could see they loved each other with the fierceness of a demon.


	92. Shade

**Fic 92. Prompt 075. 'Shade.'**

Naruto was haunted at night, and Gaara, who loved him, did not understand. He did not understand how his lover, the strongest shinobi of their generation, could shake and tremble in the night in cowed subjection to the shades of friends who had died.

They were shinobi, tools of war and death and hate, and it made little sense to grieve over the death of another. But when he told Naruto this, expecting anger and harsh words, Naruto would only smile sadly and tell him that this was another thing that separated him from humanity.

Gaara still did not understand.


	93. Why?

**Fic 93. Prompt 080. 'Why?'**

Kankuro was dead, and the word rang repeatedly through Naruto's head like the tolling of a shrine bell.

But he had not fallen in battle. It had been sickness, not unexpected. He had always been weaker after he lost the use of his legs, and the weakness caught up with him.

Gaara was standing, desolate, on the edge of the mesa, his sister's arm wrapped around thin shoulders. He never cried, and neither did Temari.

Naruto, watching, understood the ways of the desert people for the first time.

Gaara whispered something to his sister.

"Why him, Temari?"

She was silent.


	94. New Year

**Fic 94. Prompt 095. 'New Year.'**

Everyone was singing, the greatest generation of Konoha all absolutely drunk as they roared out, off-key, 'Auld Lang Syne,' over and over and over, Kiba's arms draped around his wife's shoulders.

Gaara watched, arms folded across his chest, as his husband, the Rokudaime Hokage, staggered and fell off a table where he was trying to conduct the mayhem. The sand cushioned his fall- just a little bit, though; he had to learn- while Gaara squinted out from underneath a party hat that Lee had forced on him.

This was a moment where he was almost deliriously happy to be alive.


	95. Domestic

**Fic 95. Prompt 096. 'Domestic.'**

Naruto cooked, and Gaara did the dishes. Each did their own laundry, cleaned separate floors of the house, and bought groceries on alternate weeks. Each weeded different sections of the lawn in the summer.

Gaara thought it was a good system because it gave them equal responsibility.

Naruto thought it was a good system because it meant that he got to see Gaara shirtless and sweaty when he weeded.

Gaara knew that, and he also knew how to exploit it by weeding as often as possible, distracting Naruto, and asking him to do his own chores afterward.

Naruto always agreed.


	96. Father

**Fic 96. Prompt 097. 'Father.'**

"Again!" Midori's high-pitched voice squealed with laughter as Naruto picked her up and threw her up into the air, letting Gaara's sand catch her and buoy her up higher than Naruto could reach.

"Gaara, come on! I want to get her and eat her toes!" Gaara glanced up over the edge of his book, watching Naruto feign drooling at the thought of Midori's toes. Their daughter giggled, making a face at Naruto, who flung his hands into the air and turned his back.

"Well! Aren't you rude?" Gaara smiled at Midori, who grinned back.

Midori landed on Naruto right after.


	97. Peace

**Fic 97. Prompt 097. 'Peace.'**

Gaara is lying on the couch with Naruto at his back, his lover's callused, scarred hands cradling his twisted spine with gentleness that most, who only saw the energy that hadn't drained with the years, the smile, the shouts, wouldn't believe.

His eyes are closed, and the only sound is Naruto's breath stirring the air by his ear, the slow whir of the ceiling fan in the heat of summer. His hand is resting on Naruto's thin, bony hip, fingers fitting perfectly into the groove.

He squeezes Naruto's hip, feels an answering pressure, and slips down quietly, slowly, into dreams.


	98. Memory

**Fic 98. Prompt 098. 'Memory.'**

_Memories of a life together:_

The taste of chocolate-chip pancakes.

Yuki's cold nose and wagging tail.

Midori's laughter and her bright eyes shining in the darkness of Konoha's summer twilights.

Gaara's clever tongue tracing the seal until the pain and the pleasure becomes unbearable.

Naruto's hands pressing against contorted spine and splintered scapulas until the knots of scar tissue older than life unwind and coil with a burst like stars behind the eyes.

Fingers twisting to hit right- _there_.

The perfection of pulling chopsticks apart without splinters.

The taste of Gaara's tattoo.

Blond hair fading to silver.

An unspoken love.


	99. Never

**Fic 99. Prompt 099. 'Never.'**

Naruto woke as he felt Gaara's weight leave the bed, cracking an eye open to see the thin silhouette move to stand before the door to the balcony.

"Gaara?" His voice was rusty with sleep, scratchy. Gaara glanced back at him, pale eyes shining in the moonlight, but said nothing. Naruto rolled out of bed and crossed to him, toes shrinking from the cold wooden floor.

"You okay?" Gaara leaned into his chest, and Naruto could see the fine, tiny wrinkles etched into the skin around his eyes, half-hidden in the blackness, ached for Gaara's ongoing torment.

Gaara never spoke.


	100. Death

**Fic 100. Prompt 030. 'Death.'**

Naruto was gone, and Gaara was going.

Sakura watched him touch the gravestone one last time, lips forming prayers to broken stone, before he stood, unbent and unbroken, green eyes still clear, white hair falling softly onto his shoulders.

The last members of the Konoha Twelve stood together, old but not withered, proud and strong, these shinobi that had given everything they were to give peace to their children.

Gaara paused before them, with no pack on his shoulder. He wouldn't need one, where he was going.

Everyone knew that he was leaving, that their red desert jackal had already left them as soon as Naruto's heart had thudded to a close, finally run down by the strain of containing Kyuubi's howling fury for those long fifty-three years.

Their jackal had come out of the desert, from the ruins of an old time where blood and fear reigned, and now he was returning to the desert that bore him, returning to a place where Naruto waited.

She touched his hand.

"Tell him we love him."

He nodded, turned, and was gone from them.

And the time of demons, of Uchiha and Hyuuga, of Hatake and Inuzuka, came to an end.


End file.
